Thank you Chairman
Stearns, and thank you Ranking Member DeGette, and members of the
Subcommittee for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Investments in clean energy reached a record 243 billion dollars
last year. Solar photovoltaic systems alone represent a global
market worth more than 80 billion dollars a year today. In the coming decades, the
clean energy sector is expected to grow by hundreds of billions of
dollars. We're in a fierce global race to capture this market.

In the past year and a
half, the
China Development Bank has offered more than 34 billion
dollars in credit lines to China’s solar companies. China is not
alone: To strengthen their countries’ competitiveness, governments
around the world are providing strong support to their clean energy
industries. Germany and Canada operate government-backed clean
energy lending programs, and more than 50 countries offer some type
of public financing for clean energy projects.

In the United States,
Congress established the Section 1703 and 1705 loan guarantee
programs as well as the
Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing
Program -- all of which provide support to cutting-edge clean energy
industries that involve technology and market risks. In doing so,
Congress appropriated nearly 10 billion dollars to cover potential losses
in our total loan portfolio, thereby acknowledging
the inherent risks of funding new and innovative technologies, and
also insuring that those risks are properly accounted for in the budget. We appreciate the support of the loan programs received from many members of Congress who
have urged us to accelerate our efforts and to fund worthy projects
in their states. In total, the Department received nearly 500
congressional letters about the load programs.

Through the loan programs, the Department of Energy is supporting 38 clean energy
projects that are expected to employ more than 60,000 Americans,
generate enough clean electricity to power three million homes
and displace more than 300 million gallons of gasoline annually.
These important investments are helping to make America more
competitive in the global clean energy economy.

Today, we are here to
specifically discuss the
Solyndra loan guarantee. The Department
takes our obligation to the taxpayer seriously, and welcomes the
opportunity to discuss this matter.

As you know, the
Department has consistently cooperated with the Committee’s
investigation, providing more than 186,000 pages of documents,
appearing at hearings, and briefing or being interviewed by
Committee staff eight times.

As this extensive record
has made clear, the loan guarantee to
Solyndra was subject to
proper, rigorous scrutiny and healthy debate during every phase of
the process. As the Secretary of Energy, the final decisions on
Solyndra were mine, and I made them with the best interest of the
taxpayer in mind. And I want to be clear: Over the course of Solyndra’s
loan guarantee, I did not make any decision based on political
considerations.

My decision to guarantee
a loan to Solyndra was based on the analysis of professional -- experienced
professionals and on the strength of the information they had
available to them at the time.

It's common to take -- It's common for it to
take some time for start-up companies, especially manufacturing
companies, to turn a profit. And in the two years since the
Department issued the loan guarantee, Solyndra faced deteriorating
market conditions.

Solar PV production has
expanded at the same time [that] the demand has softened due to the global
economic downturn and the decline in subsidies in countries including
Spain, Italy, and Germany. The result has been an acute drop in the
price of solar cells, which has taken a toll on many solar companies
in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Meanwhile, countries like
China are playing to win in the solar industry. China has invested
aggressively to support its companies, and in recent years, China's market share in solar cell and solar module production
has grown significantly, to roughly half the market today.

While we're
disappointed in the outcome of this particular loan, we support
Congress’s mandate to finance the deployment of innovative
technologies, and believe that our portfolio of loans does so
responsibly. The President asked for a review of the
Department’s loan portfolio. We support that review, and I look
forward to the results. The Energy Department is committed to
continually improving and applying lessons learned in everything we
do, because the stakes could not be higher for our country.

When it comes to the
clean energy race, America faces a simple choice: compete or accept
defeat. I believe we can and must compete.